Closing out a 166-day stay in orbit, two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut strapped into a Russian Soyuz spacecraft Tuesday, undocked from the International Space Station and fell back to Earth, settling to a jarring rocket-assisted touchdown on the steppe of Kazakhstan.

Read our landing story.

Station flight engineer and Soyuz co-pilot Alexander Misurkin has been extracted from the capsule after his first spaceflight to complete tonight's crew egress. He has accumulated 166 days in space.

NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, previously a mission specialist and spacewalker on shuttle Endeavour's STS-127 mission, has exited the Soyuz. He now has 181 days spent in space.

First to exit the capsule was Soyuz commander Pavel Vinogradov, now a veteran of three spaceflights -- a flight aboard the Soyuz TM-26 capsule to the Mir space station and Expeditions 13 and Expedition 35-36 to the International Space Station -- for a total of 546 days in space.

Live video from the Soyuz touchdown point shows recovery teams working to remove the three crew members from the capsule.

The recovery team aboard a convoy of Russian helicopters is landing around the spacecraft to begin assisting the crew out of the capsule. The team reports the capsule did land upright.

TOUCHDOWN! The Soyuz TMA-08M capsule has landed in Kazakhstan, capping the 166-day voyage of Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and NASA's Chris Cassidy to the International Space Station on Expeditions 35 and 36, a mission that traveled 70.4 million miles and spanned 2,656 orbits of the planet.

At an altitude of about 12 meters, cockpit displays will tell the cosmonauts to prepare for the soft landing engine firing. Just one meter above the surface, and just seconds before touchdown, the six solid propellant engines are fired in a final braking maneuver, enabling the Soyuz to land to complete its mission, settling down at a velocity of about 1.5 meters per second (3.35 mph).

Now five minutes to touchdown as Soyuz descends to Kazakhstan under its main parachute.

At an altitude of five kilometers, the module's heat shield is jettisoned. This is followed by the termination of the aerodynamic spin cycle and the dumping of any residual propellant from the Soyuz. Computers also will arm the module's seat shock absorbers in preparation for landing.

With the jettisoning of the capsule's heat shield, the Soyuz altimeter is exposed to the surface of the Earth. Using a reflector system, signals are bounced to the ground from the Soyuz and reflected back, providing the capsule's computers updated information on altitude and rate of descent.

Ten minutes to touchdown.

LIVE video from the landing site shows the Soyuz descending through blue skies under its main chute.

Once the drogue chute is jettisoned, the main parachute is deployed. It is connected to the Descent Module by two harnesses, covers an area of about 1,000 square meters and slows descent to 7.2 meters/second.

Initially, the Descent Module will hang underneath the main parachute at a 30-degree angle with respect to the horizon for aerodynamic stability, but the bottommost harness will be severed a few minutes before landing, allowing the Descent Module to hang vertically through touchdown.

Onboard computers should be starting a commanded sequence for deployment of the capsule's parachutes at an altitude of about 10 kilometers. Two "pilot" parachutes are unfurled first, extracting a 24-square-meter drogue parachute. Within 16 seconds, the craft's fall will slow from 230 meters per second to about 80 m/s.

The parachute deployment creates a gentle spin for the Soyuz as it dangles underneath the drogue chute, assisting in the capsule's stability in the final minutes before touchdown.

The crew experiences the period of maximum G-loads at this point during entry.

Twenty minutes to landing. The Soyuz is making its fiery plunge into the atmosphere.

Entry Interface. The Soyuz is now hitting the upper fringes of the atmosphere at an altitude of 400,000 feet. The Expedition crew will soon begin to feel the first tugs of Earth's gravity after four months in space.

The entry guidance by the spacecraft's onboard software package is scheduled to start in a couple of minutes.

Module separation has occurred, Mission Control reports.

The three segments of the Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft have jettisoned apart, allowing the crew-carrying Descent Module to safely ferry the three crew members back to Earth. The no-longer-needed Orbital Module and Instrumentation/Propulsion Module are designed to burn up in the atmosphere.

The Soyuz computers have been loaded with and enabled the commands to perform the pyrotechnic separation of the modules.

Time to touchdown is now 30 minutes.

In about three minutes at an altitude of 87 miles, just above the first traces of the Earth's atmosphere, computers will command the separation of the three modules that comprise the Soyuz vehicle. With the crew strapped in to the Descent Module, the forward Orbital Module containing the docking mechanism and rendezvous antennas and the rear Instrumentation/Propulsion Module, which houses the engines and avionics, will pyrotechnically separate and burn up in the atmosphere.

The Descent Module's computers will orient the capsule with its ablative heat shield pointing forward to repel the buildup of heat as it plunges into the atmosphere. Entry interface at the upper fringes of the atmosphere, when the capsule is about 400,000 feet above the Earth, happens about three minutes after module separation.

The Soyuz flight path is crossing Africa now as the spacecraft falls back toward the atmosphere. The crew members are also closing their helmets at this time.

DEORBIT BURN COMPLETE! The Soyuz has performed its braking maneuver, committing the craft for entry into the atmosphere. Touchdown is about 49 minutes away.

DEORBIT BURN IGNITION! Thrusters on the Russian Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft are firing to brake from orbit. This deorbit burn is expected to last four minutes and 46 seconds to put the capsule on a course for the trip back to Earth, slowing the vehicle by about 286 mph.

Now one hour to touchdown.

The separation firing by the Soyuz's thrusters has been completed to accelerate the spacecraft's departure from the International Space Station. The capsule will be several miles away when it performs the deorbit burn today at 10:05 p.m. EDT. Touchdown is scheduled for 10:58 p.m. EDT.

UNDOCKING. The Soyuz TMA-08M spacecraft has separated from the space station after 166 days there, setting the stage for today's return to Earth with Soyuz commander Pavel Vinogradov, Russian flight engineer Alexander Misurkin and NASA's Chris Cassidy.

The undocking occurred 258 miles over eastern Mongolia.

The undocking command has been issued. Hooks and latches holding the Soyuz and the station's Rassvet module tightly together are being opened now.

The homeward-bound crew has worked together for the past couple of hours to power up the Soyuz, active the craft's systems, remove docking clamps, depressurize the vestibule between the capsule and station, and don their Sokol spacesuits. Undocking is set for 7:35 p.m. EDT.

The crew has boarded the Soyuz spacecraft for this evening's journey from the International Space Station to the landing site in Kazakhstan. The crew closed the hatchway between the station and capsule at 4:19 p.m. EDT.

Two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut packed up and readied their Soyuz spacecraft for undocking from the International Space Station overnight Tuesday, setting up a fiery plunge back to Earth to close out a 166-day stay in orbit.

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